Thursday, August 10, 2017

Had more gastric problems a couple of weeks ago, was in the hospital (Banner Churchill in Fallon, NV) for 3 1/2 days, the main symptoms have settled down, but now I have to make an appointment with an Gastroenterologist. Ugh. Now to search through the Prominence Insurance provider list. Did get a wee bit of test knitting done on the Brother 390 bulky, really like the interaction of fine silks with the bulky chenille yarn. Using the fine silk in the 390 carriage for one row, take it off and put it on the far right end of the bed behind the 400 carruage, then the chenille in the 400 carriage for 4 rows of odd and end tuck. Will have to do up a larger sample to see if it retains what I liked in the 30 stitches I originally cast on. We'll see. Having to have an awful lot of bed rest. So it may be a few days/weeks before I get enough knit up to show.Marge

Sunday, March 5, 2017

I have high hopes that the two doctors I get to see on Wednesday, will tell me something good. The diet is extremely boring. But I've stuck to it like glue. I don't want to go through what sent me to the ER in the first place. Lovely, kind doctors and nurses and technicians at Banner Hospital in Fallon, NV.

Now on to other things ... like knitting. I've been going over a lot of Roberta Rose Kelley's videos and Susan Guagliumi's videos. I've got a great grand daughter turning 1 in April and I need to get some things knit and off in the mail. Pretty darned soon! LOL.

So. I've adjusted the patterns on some of the booties to be for a toddler ... she's already walking! A bit shaky but walking. And, I've got the yarn wound off the skeins for 3 sleeveless pullover vests in various yarn weights (#2, #3 & #4).

Maybe more than 3, they do go so quickly. Picot hems & crochet around the armholes and neckline. The 18mo ones are in pieces/parts right now. She was an 8lb 15oz baby!! Still having some vision problems, will try to work on sewing one or two up in the next day or so. Keep on knittin' !!

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Well, the results are in. I have Diverticulitis. Isn't that a mouthfull to say. 😐 But it's treatable with plenty of rest and LOTS of pills. BIG pills. LOL.

Did manage to work for a few minutes on the Brother KX390 knitter with both the 390 and 400 carriages. Tried some chenille yarns and some knitweave. Not particularly thrilled at the outcome. It's a very lightweight fabric and soft but I had the wrong color combinations and yarn weights.

One was an 800 YPP in Balsam Green, another was Placid Blue 1195 YPP. They knit beautifully. It was the secondary weights / colors that just didn't work. One was Tawny Oak at 2100 YPP another was a red-ish at about the same YPP. They were too thin for the bulky mode to really show up much when doing EOR knitweave. Perhaps SLIP / SKIP would have been better on every row. Or tuck ... love doing tuck!!

Ah well, will try some different things next time I can sit at the machine for any length of time.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

So devastated about the Oroville Dam (Butte County, Oroville, California) and the flooding. The Butte County Sheriff issued a mandatory evacuation and he was right to have done that. He cares so much about that community. It's affected not only Butte County, but all the cities, towns, farms to the south. For a LONG way. Marysville is under evacuation orders as is Gridley and so many more. It wil impact even to Sacramento and beyond. Have been watching all the news shows. Have heard back from family and friends that they are either living on high ground above the flood plain or have evacuated safely. Whew!! Thank the good Lord that all who evacuate are safe tonight. The crisis, so they say, should be over by tomorrow afternoon. I have high hopes. They plan to drop rocks into the areas of erosion. They need to do something ... more rain coming Wednesday. I used to live in Oroville, was married there. I have lots of fond memories of the area. Pray, my friends, for all those affected by this disaster.Marge

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Here are a couple more wash/dish cloths.
The first one is done on the 390 with the 400 carriage, using the Plating feature. You'll see that there seem to be two plain rows of the baby cotton white ... not too sure where the medium pink Ticaro flake went to on those rows but it showed up a couple of rows later. Go figure! :-)

The second is from a new cone I unearthed last night, Peaches & Creme Ocean Stripes. Nice and thick, love the color blending. I'll see how many I can get out of this one cone. I think they're about $7 or $8 now at WalMart stores. I remember $6 ones. Ah, the good old days. Maybe.

I used to get about 10-12 out of a cone, but that was hand crocheted, the 32 chain ones with a "G" or "H" hook. But this pattern from Roberta Rose Kelley's video on YouTube.com, is soooo much easier and quicker. As she says in the video, "it's not square-square nor a rectangle"
. I think it's more of a diamond shape. At least mine are.

A BIG THANK YOU, Roberta Rose Kelley for all the informative videos you provide. And your website, http://www.hobbyknitter.com is a wealth of information for anything machine knit. She has numerous brands of machines!!

Friday, February 3, 2017

Besides playing with two carriages on my 390 knitting machine, I've been doing a lot of household type chores. Knitting dishcloths. Was doing some mending and realized that several of the dish cloths were stained. Can't put those out again! So they went to the car/garage/workshop rag bag. Here's a few that I've made. 100% cotton in a cream color. Need to get some more Sugar & Creme on cones next time I'm at WalMart. But hopefully they'll have some darker or maybe variegated colors. That would be nice.

I
got very bored knitting dish cloths with white, cream, beige, etc. So decided that since I had a lot of a thinner
baby weight cotton white yarn, I would add another color. Didn't work
well with the thicker white or cream yarn. So I dug out several balls
of left-over Ticaro Flake cotton 8/2. This one is Coral. I have LOTS
of Ticaro. Might try plating with 2 strands of Ticaro along with the
baby white. Knitting went very easily. No real problems. Except when I
sneezed just as I was transferring stitches. Sigh. Amazing how quickly it laddered down.

I have about a dozen 3-4 ounce balls of Rayon and Acrylic chenille's at the machine right now. I'm hoping to do some 2-carriage knitting with them today. Masts on these plastic bed machines all seem to be a bit 'short' and not sure yet how the coned chenille would do. They're kinda tall. So testing with the balls first.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

More experiments with double carriages on the Brother 390 Convertible. I'm using the original 390 carriage and also the 400 carriage. Here is the one I did last week. I've got Red Heart worsted weight in both carriages. Green is in the 400, Gold in the 390. Top one is knit side, bottom one is purl side. I really liked the gold with the mock seed stitch. Carriage set to knit both ways -- pull out EON to "E", knit across, now pull out the opposite needles to "E" and knit. Repeat. And if you have the 1x1 needle pusher for your machine, it goes very quickly.
Enjoy!
Marge

Monday, January 16, 2017

Finally, folks .... I think I'm getting my act together. After lots of medical issues, a move 2 1/2 years and lots of adjustments to my life, I'm ready to get back into blogging! About knitting, of course.

I
have a "new-to-me" technique I'm trying out. Dual
carriages knitting. My Brother 390, which I use in 9mm mode,
has two carriages. The 390 that came with the machine and also
the 400 carriage which I have used since I got the machine.
It has Intarsia and plating, my two fav things.

Alas,
the 390 carriage wasn't functioning for many years. I don't
even rember if I ever used the 390 carriage, since the 400 came
at the same time. The Carriage Release lever didn't have any
'spring' to it, so it wouldn't get onto the bed. And there was
also one lever on the left side that didn't 'click' into place.

they
say 'where there's a will, there's a way'. And if there's a
Wade Parker around (my son) there's a fix in the future. So
he took both apart and found both problems ... and he fix 'em.
That's my boy!!!

Thoroughly
enjoying myself. Stripes are super easy and quick to do with
two carriages. This took literally a very few minutes.

I
have a huge amount of odd and end yarns on partial cones and
in balls. Another nice thing about the 390 ... it has 4.5mm
as well as the 9mm. I see lots of scarves in the future. More examples soon.